This is an application for funds to maintain a previously established germfree animal resource at the Louisiana State University School of Medicine. This facility provides space and personnel to maintain gnotobiotic animals for all appropriate projects in any department in the school. Under proper circumstances, animals, animal tissues and fluids are supplied to other institutions. This germfree facility provides animals reared under the best principles of gnotobiotic technology, with all the safeguards inherent in a University environment and with supervision by physicians, biological scientists, and veterinarians trained in the germfree field. The facility will continue to supply animals for projects already initiated in the germfree field at the L.S.U. School of Medicine and future projects at the Schools of Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine. Current projects include: microcirculation, villus motility, blind-loop syndrome, burns, nutritional studies, intestinal absorption, hepatic encephalopathy, hemorrhagic shock, antibiotic decontamination and the application of germfree technology to hospital patient isolation and care. Each research project will be expected to provide its own funding which will be used to defray the germfree animal care costs. Also, the germfree facility provides the environment for training medical, dental, veterinary and graduate students in highly specialized research. The germfree facility will investigate new techniques to lower the cost of rearing germfree dogs. Basic physiologic, anatomic, and biochemical studies will also be conducted to define the germfree dog and thereby increase its usefulness as a unique bio-medical tool.